


The Weather Outside is Frightful

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Disgusting amounts of fluff, Fluff, M/M, Teenagers, literally self-indulgent christmas fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann's snowed in at Newt's, and seeing as he's never had a proper Christmas before, Newt sees to it that his friend does this year. AKA short little self-indulgent Christmas fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weather Outside is Frightful

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and probably mildly OOC (it's 3:30am, shh...), but I just felt the need to write something about these two idiots and Christmas, so this happened as a result. Any feedback is appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

Newt tapped his pencil against his head in thought, wondering whether the tail of the beast he was drawing should be redrawn or not. It looked fine enough, but he knew that it could’ve totally been way more badass… maybe with spikes or barbs or-

“My parents won’t be home until the snow clears,” Hermann cut in, walking back into Newt’s room. The boy frowned, but Newt knew it wasn’t so much because of the ‘quality time’ he was missing out on with his family, as it was the fact that he was embarrassed about announcing such a thing. His ears were an admittedly adorable shade of pink that Newt would never admit to thinking about, and he was practically swimming in the ugly Christmas sweater (that Newt required Hermann to wear because good god, man, it’s Christmas Eve! Have some spirit! What? You’re Jewish? Well, c’mon, you said you’re not even practicing.)

“That’s cool, man. You know you can stick around. My dad thinks you’re the shit- why? Who knows, but you can even stay the night if you need to.” Newt glanced over towards the window, eyebrows raising at the onslaught of snow that poured down relentlessly from above. Piles of the stuff were climbing up the sides of his house. “Shit, it really is coming down.”

“An astute observation,” Hermann quipped, rolling his eyes before settling back down on Newt’s bed. “I guess we’ll have more time to work on our project though.” He hummed in thought, picking up a pencil to dive back into his equations. Which, uh, no. Newt was not letting that happen. They’d been working for six hours straight, and frankly, they more than deserved a break at this point. So he only did what was natural: Newt swatted the pencil out of Hermann’s hand.

“No,” he deadpanned, revelling in the look of well-worn frustration on Hermann’s face at the action. “You are so done working today. We’re giving you the Geiszler Christmas treatment today and tomorrow.” And if Newt’s chest sped up a little bit at Hermann’s flustered expression, he wasn’t going to think too deeply about it. He’d only known Hermann for a little over a year, and he wasn’t exactly outright told by the boy, but the clues were apparent enough that he didn’t get along too well with his family- or, at least, his father.

Newt had never met the man thanks to Hermann’s careful tiptoeing around the subject, but holidays in general never seemed to spark any kind of joy in Hermann’s eyes, so this year, Newt was taking it upon himself to add at least one positive holiday season memory to the metaphorical scrapbook of Hermann Gottlieb.

“I’m actually afraid to know what you mean by that,” Hermann scowled, which Newt totally knew to take as a ‘Fine, you can continue.’

“I’ll give you the works, everything! You’ll be shitting Christmas by the time I’m done with you!” Newt beamed.

“You make it all sound so appealing,” Hermann deadpanned, ignoring the way Newt punched him softly in the arm.

“Stop being a turd.” Hermann squinted in confusion at the insult. “Just go downstairs and tell my dad you’re staying the night, and grab some cookies on the way up. I’ll make the room a little more festive.”

“Fine,” Hermann relented, sliding off the bed to shuffle out the door.

Newt grinned, immediately springing into action. His first course of action was to clear his bed of all the school books and supplies, which essentially involved shoving everything onto the floor. After that, he hurried over towards the outlet and plugged in his Christmas lights that were strung around the windows of his room and over some of his Godzilla posters.

The classic reds and blues and whites and greens lit up the room warmly, glowing softly as he shut off the main lamp in his room before starting up some Frank Sinatra Christmas songs on low on his speakers. To top it off, Newt clicked on the small, hand-me-down TV he and his uncle had fixed up over the summer, looking hopefully for any kind of Christmas special. With a grin, he stopped on a channel showing the original Jack Frost, flopping back on his bed just in time for Hermann to walk back in with a plate of sugar cookies.

“Cookies? For me?” He said, suddenly frowning in confusion at Hermann’s halt in the middle of his room. “What? Too much? I can turn off the music or whatever. I know it’s a bit impractical to have it on with the TV playing too, but, I mean, why not?” Newt rattled off, taking in the sight of his friend who stood stockstill with a plate of cookies in hand. “Uh… Hermann? You okay?” Directly addressing him seemed to snap him out of whatever daze he was in.

“Erm,” he cleared his throat, looking around the room with what could only be described as wonder. “It’s nice,” he settled on, the words coming out a little hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure what to exactly say. Newt beamed. What a fucking dork.

“Well, c’mon,” he sat up and patted the other side of the bed. “Lots of room, don’t be shy.”

Hermann climbed up onto the bed, looking worriedly out the window. “It doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better,”

“Hm?” Newt mumbled around a cookie he’d jammed into his mouth. “Oh, what, the snow? Yeah, no, it looks pretty disgusting outside. Plows probably aren’t gonna get around to clearing the streets until tomorrow, so just relax, dude.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed, thank you.” Hermann spit back, but there was no venom in it, so Newt knew he was doing just fine. He plucked a cookie from the tray and took a bite- plucked, because of course Hermann Gottlieb couldn’t just manhandle a slightly deformed Santa Claus in cookie form and cram it into his mouth like a normal human being. No, he plucked things.

From there, they settled into a discussion, okay, an argument, about the various kinds of theories about how Santa could possibly deliver millions of presents in a single night. Completely ignoring the fact that this was a purely theoretical conversation, the two boys had worked themselves into quite the fit by the time the credits to the Jack Frost Christmas special scrolled across the screen. All the cookies had been consumed and the platter shoved hastily off the bed (by Newt, of course), and after a quick warning from Newt’s dad to quiet down because he was going to bed (it was only 1am. Weak.), they struggled to keep their volume down. Newt was almost positive that the use of Santa clones was the most effective, but Hermann was dead set on the theory that Santa simply had calculated the needed time for each delivery and worked accordingly with the time zones thanks to pinpoint gift-delivering accuracy. Fucking math nerd.

However, what neither boy noticed was the fact that throughout their argument, they had slipped from sitting on the bed to laying down, and Newt’s head rested on Hermann’s chest. To make matters worse, their hands were apparently entwined on Newt’s stomach. It was only after they’d lapsed into silence that Newt’s consciousness caught up with reality, and he immediately stiffened. Apparently Hermann had caught on at the same time, because he tensed up underneath Newt, and his heart began to pound loudly in Newt’s ear.

“So, uh…” Newt started, because of course he’d be the first one to talk. He cleared his throat awkwardly, unsure of whether or not it was better to move or not. If he was being honest with himself, he was pretty damn comfortable, but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure if Hermann was totally onboard with… with this… with whatever the hell it was. Newt wanted to scream.

He didn’t.

Instead he took the much more mature route of making an ill-timed joke.

“You make a good pillow, Hermann. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise,” he forced a chuckle, wincing at his inability to process actual normal human interactions. Fucking hell. He wouldn’t blame Hermann if he never looked at Newt again. He felt Hermann sigh. Whether in annoyance or forced relaxation, he wasn’t sure. Newt wasn’t too keen on moving and looking Hermann in the face right now.

“Newton,” he said, voice uncharacteristically quiet.

Newt bit his lip, unsure of exactly what to say, so he settled on a simple, “Hm?” in lieu of risking opening his mouth and saying something wildly inappropriate, as he was prone to do.

“What’s that hanging on your ceiling?”

“What?” Newt squinted up at his ceiling, at first only seeing the Godzilla poster he’d pinned up there. It was his favorite one, a giant closeup up the monster’s green and scaly face. But as he looked more closely and the memory came back to him, a sneaky little sprig of mistletoe was tacked carelessly on the forehead of Godzilla. Newt thought he was so fucking clever when he’d done that, but of course he’d promptly forgotten about it until right now.

“Huh,” he said, voice squeaking embarrassingly. “I think that’s mistletoe.” He started to move and a fumbled apology was already on his lips, but Hermann’s grip on his hand tightened just marginally, and before he could do anything, he was flipped over onto his side to face the other boy. Hermann stared at him, only the colors from the Christmas lights illuminating his face, casting an inviting splash of warmth over his usually reserved face.

“I’m almost certain you put something in those cookies, or else I wouldn’t be saying this, but I think that means we’re supposed to kiss.” Hermann whispered, eyes flickering down to look at Newt’s lips. Newt swallowed, unsure of exactly how to proceed other than with a nod. “It’s rare to see you so quiet,” Hermann smirked, moving in as he brought a hand up to cup Newt’s face.

It was over too soon.

Just a quick, soft press of the lips that tasted like sugar cookies and eggnog, but it was enough to make Newt grin from ear to ear like a kid opening his presents early on Christmas. His heart was still pounding, but at least now it was for an entirely different, and much more pleasant, reason. His chest was flooding with warmth, and it made him positively giddy.

“I never knew you had such smooth moves, Herms,” Newt winked.

“Please don’t ruin the mood with your failed attempts at seduction,” Hermann replied, rolling his eyes, pulling Newt closer up against him again. He left his palm face up on Newt’s stomach, an invitation that he was more than happy to take him up on. Hermann nuzzled into Newt’s mess of hair, breathing deeply with a quiet contentment that Newt had only seem from his friend one other time. Hermann had been sitting alone near a pond, entirely unaware that Newt had stumbled by, and before he’d opened his big mouth and ruined the moment, Newt remembered how serene the boy had looked, lost in his own thoughts away from the world.

If he could recreate that kind of contentment in Hermann just by laying here, he was more than okay with that development. He relaxed into the other boy, and it was when he was struggling to stay awake that Newt couldn’t help but mumble out, “Guess you don’t need a sleeping bag this time, huh?”

“Shut up and let me enjoy Christmas,” Hermann muttered back, and Newt, for once, let him do exactly that.


End file.
